Number of vehicles to earn top safety pick doubles over last year

Thirty-four vehicles earn the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS)s Top Safety Pick award for 2008, more than double the number of vehicles that met the criteria for 2007.
Eight of the 34 vehicles are manufactured by Ford and its subsidiary, Volvo, while Honda and its subsidiary Acura hold seven of the places on the list, an IIHS release says.
For the first time pick-up trucks were eligible for the designation because the IIHS began side-test crashing them. The Toyota Tundra, the only vehicle in the class to have standard side airbags, was the only vehicle in the class to earn the designation.
Pick-ups are more likely than in the past to be used as family vehicles, so equipping them with the latest safety features is important, Adrian Lund, IIHS president, said in a statement.
Front and side impacts are the most common kinds of fatal crashes, killing nearly 25,000 of the 31,000 vehicle occupants who died in the United States in 2005, an IIHS release says.
While rear-end crashes typically arent fatal, they do result in a large proportion of the injuries that occur in crashes, it continues, adding that roughly 60% of insurance injury claims in 2002 reported minor neck sprains and strains.